Abstract

Boat-based acoustic and visual surveys for harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) were conducted during the summers of 2001 and 2002in order to investigate their distribution and relative abundance in the Baltic Sea, and to compare the results with the adjacent Kiel and Mecklenburg Bights and the Little Belt.

Purpose

Harbor porpoises are subject to year-round bycatch in gillnets and other fishing gear in these waters. This is of particular concern in the Baltic Sea where a survey carried out in 1995 indicated that the population is low and current levels of anthropogenic mortality are believed to be unsustainable.

Supplemental information

6/15/2010: The primary contact was changed from Douglas Gillespie to Anna Moscrop upon provider request.

3/28/2007: _obs_count (species count) field was blank. It is now filled with proper counts.

This dataset includes visual sightings events only.Data for acoustic events during the survey are available in Baltic Porpoise Acoustic Surveys 01-02.Acoustic sound files are not available in OBIS-SEAMAP.

Attributes

Overview

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downlodable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission unless otherwise noted below.

Attributes in dataset provided

Attribute (table column)

Description

dataset

lineno

incidental

Whether the sighting is incidental or not.Incidental sightings were recorded in 2001 only.